International Cat Speculators Since 2006

Posts tagged ‘Other News’

It’s a detailed report on how Smiths City is complying with minimum share holding regulations.

Seriously?

NZX listing rules require shareholdings, where the share price is between 25 cents and 50c, to be at least 1000 shares.

The Smiths City board was asking those shareholders to increase their holding over 1000 shares on or before January 31.

If that was not done, the company would make a formal offer to buy back the shareholders’ entire holding at the average price per share for the 10 days from December 22, after the company’s publication of its half-year report.

The company would pay the administrative costs from the share purchases.

”If you do not take up the company’s offer to purchase your shares, the Company must then, in accordance with Article 8.4 of the Company’s Constitution sell your shares (on a date no less than three months and one week from the date of this letter) on the NZX on your behalf.

Some readers may be familiar with Craig Smith and his work at Family Integrity.

Until today, He has been fighting cancer.

(From Facebook)

Gone to Glory

Dear friends, on Friday morning, Craig was very drowsy and spent most of the day asleep. He remained peaceful and quiet and deeply unconscious all afternoon. Late in the evening it became difficult for him to breathe and in a short time, about 11:35pm on Friday the 30th of September 2011 our gracious God took Craig home to Heaven.

I never met Craig. I knew him by reputation only, his work with homeschooling and Family Integrity.

Police have arrested 78 people, many drunk, for night-time breaches of Christchurch’s central city cordon since February’s earthquake.

Figures release by police today showed the number of arrests was highest in May, when 18 people were arrested for being inside the red zone without permission.

I was talking to someone recently who’d been on the cordon.

Basically, they just check people going in and respond to alarms. Apparently they have the entire place fitted with sensors. People (usually drunk as the article says) think they’re out of sight and can simply sneak in, but get caught because they trip a sensor. The army guys simply give the cops a call, who turn up with dogs and track the person.

I jokingly asked if they were lasers. Apparently so, but not the sort you find in James Bond moves I guess.

Well, the memorial service was today. It was really too early, but sometimes there’s never a good time for these things.

I am sure for many of those who have been part of the rescue/recovery operation, the long weekend will do them good. Certainly I heard reports on the radio that a great many people were seen leaving Christchurch to take advantage of the holiday.

Other than that, I don’t really have any words to say. It’s heartwrenching to see so many lose so much, and there’s not a lot to do from here but offer what help we can and pray.

One positive that we can take from this whole thing is the knowledge that when things really mattered, people jumped at any opportunity to help those around them – and it wasn’t just students either farmers have made massive contributions in spite of not having their normal work go on hold.

Saw this post via twitter. It goes through what has happened, the safety measures, why they failed etc etc.

The plant came close to a core meltdown. Here is the worst-case scenario that was avoided: If the seawater could not have been used for treatment, the operators would have continued to vent the water steam to avoid pressure buildup. The third containment would then have been completely sealed to allow the core meltdown to happen without releasing radioactive material. After the meltdown, there would have been a waiting period for the intermediate radioactive materials to decay inside the reactor, and all radioactive particles to settle on a surface inside the containment. The cooling system would have been restored eventually, and the molten core cooled to a manageable temperature. The containment would have been cleaned up on the inside. Then a messy job of removing the molten core from the containment would have begun, packing the (now solid again) fuel bit by bit into transportation containers to be shipped to processing plants. Depending on the damage, the block of the plant would then either be repaired or dismantled.

The explosion was apparently caused by an abundance of caution.

At some stage during this venting, the explosion occurred. The explosion took place outside of the third containment (our “last line of defense”), and the reactor building. Remember that the reactor building has no function in keeping the radioactivity contained. It is not entirely clear yet what has happened, but this is the likely scenario: The operators decided to vent the steam from the pressure vessel not directly into the environment, but into the space between the third containment and the reactor building (to give the radioactivity in the steam more time to subside). The problem is that at the high temperatures that the core had reached at this stage, water molecules can “disassociate” into oxygen and hydrogen – an explosive mixture. And it did explode, outside the third containment, damaging the reactor building around. It was that sort of explosion, but inside the pressure vessel (because it was badly designed and not managed properly by the operators) that lead to the explosion of Chernobyl. This was never a risk at Fukushima.

On top of the quake and tsunami aftermath, Japan is already dealing with evacuations and the effects of the radiation leaked so far. If the last ditch efforts (using sea water for cooling) fail then:

If the temperature inside the reactor continues to rise and reaches roughly 2200C, the uranium fuel pellets will start to melt. From there, melted fuel will eat through the bottom of the reactor vessel, then the floor of the damaged containment building. At that point, the uranium and radioactive byproducts of the nuclear reactions will start escaping into the environment.

At some point, the walls of the reactor vessel will melt into a lava-like pile, slump into any remaining water on the floor, and could cause an explosion much bigger than the one caused by the hydrogen, enhancing the spread of radioactive contaminants. …

In Auckland, Dr Krofcheck said that if the Fukushima Daiichi accident became a meltdown and released large amounts of radiation, “I’m sure it would not be a major problem for New Zealand. Most of it would be confined to the Northern Hemisphere, and most certainly, Japan itself.”

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